Join us for live office hours! Next WednesdayNext Wed
DevOps
← Back to Glossary
DevOps Practices

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development and IT operations to shorten the development lifecycle while delivering features, fixes, and updates frequently and reliably.

The DevOps Philosophy

DevOps emerged from the frustration of siloed development and operations teams. Developers would write code, throw it over the wall to operations, and hope for the best. DevOps breaks down these silos by fostering a culture of shared responsibility for the entire software lifecycle.

Core Practices

  • Continuous Integration — merge and test code changes frequently
  • Continuous Delivery — keep code always ready for production deployment
  • Infrastructure as Code — manage infrastructure through version-controlled configuration
  • Monitoring and Observability — understand system behavior through metrics, logs, and traces
  • Incident Response — structured processes for detecting, responding to, and learning from failures

DevOps Metrics

The DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment) metrics provide a framework for measuring DevOps performance:

  • Deployment frequency — how often code reaches production
  • Lead time for changes — time from commit to production
  • Mean time to recovery — how quickly teams recover from failures
  • Change failure rate — percentage of deployments causing incidents

DevOps at Scale

As organizations grow, DevOps practices need supporting infrastructure. This is where platform engineering comes in—building internal tools and platforms that make it easy for every team to follow DevOps best practices without becoming infrastructure experts.

Related Terms

CI/CDGitOpsPlatform EngineeringDevSecOps

Related Articles

Own Your Infrastructure

AI leveled the playing field. You don't need vendor platforms anymore. Here's what real infrastructure ownership looks like and why it's your strategic advantage.

Feb 15 2026

Why Terraform Is More Relevant Than Ever in the AI Era

Generative AI doesn't replace infrastructure as code—it supercharges it. Here's why IaC is the perfect foundation for agentic development.

Jan 28 2026

You Need More AWS Accounts Than You Think

Your lead engineer thinks 10 AWS accounts is overkill. Here's why starting clean is weeks of work, while untangling later is 6-12 months of migration pain.

Dec 19 2025

Service-Oriented Terraform: Why the Patterns That Work for Software Work for Infrastructure

Infrastructure as Code follows the same architectural principles software engineering established decades ago. Here's why service-oriented patterns aren't workarounds—they're the right way to build.

Nov 30 2025

Building Enterprise-Grade Terraform: A Practical Guide

Ready to build enterprise-grade Terraform? This guide covers the architectural patterns, governance frameworks, and practical implementation steps that successful teams use to balance compliance with team autonomy.

Nov 15 2025

The Production Ready Newsletter

Build Smarter. Avoid Mistakes. Stay Ahead of DevOps Trends That Matter.

The fastest way to achieve SOC 2 on AWS with Terraform and GitHub Actions.

For Developers

  • GitHub
  • Documentation
  • Quickstart Docs
  • Resources
  • Read our Blog

Community

  • Join Office Hours
  • Join the Slack Community
  • DevOps Podcast
  • Try our Newsletter

Company

  • Services & Support
  • AWS Migrations
  • Pricing
  • Book a Meeting

Legal

  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Cookie Policy
Copyright ©2026 Cloud Posse, LLC. All rights reserved.